Harris Ranch

A developer will proceed with a garden homes project on the site of the former Harris Ranch horse stables. The Planning Commission recommended the project in May. With the City Council's approval of a zoning change from agricultural to residential last week, Bartoli Fuhrman Development may build the 43 single-family homes. The five-acre development at 11811 Wintersburg Ave. will have two-story homes ranging in size from 1,498 square feet to 1,932 square feet.

California restricts billboards along rural freeways, but there's a spot on Interstate 5 near Coalinga that's a better advertisement for vegetarianism than any Madison Avenue genius could ever devise. It is Harris Ranch, an 800-acre feedlot and meat-processing operation whose smell assaults passersby long before the panorama of thousands of cattle packed atop layers of their own manure appears. It's not without reason that wags have dubbed the place "Cowschwitz.":Cowschwitz.JPG Author Michael Pollan, whose 2006 bestseller, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," holds a high place amid a growing body of popular literature and scientific research critical of industrial agriculture, told an interviewer last year that the sight of Harris Ranch was one of the things that caused him to change the way he ate. This week, Harris Ranch Beef Co. Chairman David E. Wood got his revenge.

On the ramrod-straight, 400-mile stretch of Interstate 5 that connects the Bay Area and Los Angeles, little exists to break the tedium of the flat, seemingly endless Central Valley farmland. About midway between the metropolises, however, one sight has given many a speeding urbanite pause: The Harris Ranch feedlot, which appears from afar to be a vast, teeming sea of black, brown and white but on closer inspection (by eye or nose) reveals itself as a motley community of 80,000 or so cattle.

When officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo scheduled a free lecture by bestselling author Michael Pollan, they envisioned a lively talk about sustainable food, along with Pollan's customary critiques of agribusiness. What they didn't expect was a wave of denunciations from angry farming and ranching alumni who rank Pollan as a force only slightly less damaging to agriculture than the Mediterranean fruit fly. Threatening to pull his donations, the head of one of California's biggest ranching operations succeeded in turning today's planned lecture into a panel discussion involving Pollan, a meat-science expert, and a major grower of organic lettuce.

SOME people hunt for out-of-state license plates, listen to a long piece of classical music or simply zone out while driving Interstate 5 through California's seemingly endless Central Valley, which is as flat and featureless as a tabletop. But those who have driven that stretch of highway more than a few times know that rest for the weary awaits at the Harris Ranch Inn and Restaurant.

The long Thanksgiving holiday hadn't even started, but the parking lot at the Harris Ranch Inn & Restaurant was filling with the red-eyed and road-weary. Beverly Lund, a 46-year-old music industry executive, swung in for a bag of fruit on the way from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. Don Dakin, the owner of a San Diego optical manufacturing plant, took a break for a steak during a family trip to a second home in Lake Tahoe. Mel Grable had come even farther.

California restricts billboards along rural freeways, but there's a spot on Interstate 5 near Coalinga that's a better advertisement for vegetarianism than any Madison Avenue genius could ever devise. It is Harris Ranch, an 800-acre feedlot and meat-processing operation whose smell assaults passersby long before the panorama of thousands of cattle packed atop layers of their own manure appears. It's not without reason that wags have dubbed the place "Cowschwitz.":Cowschwitz.JPG Author Michael Pollan, whose 2006 bestseller, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," holds a high place amid a growing body of popular literature and scientific research critical of industrial agriculture, told an interviewer last year that the sight of Harris Ranch was one of the things that caused him to change the way he ate. This week, Harris Ranch Beef Co. Chairman David E. Wood got his revenge.

John Harris' cattle empire looks like small potatoes compared with meat giants IBP Inc. and Excel Corp., but here the rancher is a cattle baron, controlling almost a quarter of all cattle slaughtered in the state.

SUSAN SPANO found another winner ["Breaking Away From the Herd," Her World, Oct. 8] when she reported on the Harris Ranch, which serves as an oasis-type rest stop when driving the monotonous Interstate 5 through the Central Valley. My wife, Alda, and I have always looked forward to stopping there for relaxation and refreshments while driving between Los Angeles and Sacramento. Spano failed to mention that the ranch also is a great lunch destination for pilots because of an adjacent 2,800-foot runway with parking.

May 21, 1995 | MICHAEL PARRISH, TIMES STAFF WRITER; Parrish writes for The Times' Business section. and

Halfway from Los Angeles to San Francisco, up the monotony of Interstate 5, Harris Ranch is a familiar traveler's refuge. Big red sign, can't miss it. Aficionados of beef began stopping for choice-grade steak and eggs, or steak and almost anything, when the restaurant and coffee shop opened next to the freeway in 1977. Ten years later the family company built a Spanish-style, beige stucco inn with Olympic-size pool, spa and gardens under the palm trees.

Dear SOS: I recently ate at Harris Ranch Restaurant (located off Interstate 5 at the Coalinga exit) and was very impressed with their biscuits, as they reminded me of happy memories of my childhood. I wanted to buy some to take to my sisters, but the restaurant/bakery does not sell biscuits to the public. I would appreciate it if you can obtain the recipe for me. Thank you.

SUSAN SPANO found another winner ["Breaking Away From the Herd," Her World, Oct. 8] when she reported on the Harris Ranch, which serves as an oasis-type rest stop when driving the monotonous Interstate 5 through the Central Valley. My wife, Alda, and I have always looked forward to stopping there for relaxation and refreshments while driving between Los Angeles and Sacramento. Spano failed to mention that the ranch also is a great lunch destination for pilots because of an adjacent 2,800-foot runway with parking.

SOME people hunt for out-of-state license plates, listen to a long piece of classical music or simply zone out while driving Interstate 5 through California's seemingly endless Central Valley, which is as flat and featureless as a tabletop. But those who have driven that stretch of highway more than a few times know that rest for the weary awaits at the Harris Ranch Inn and Restaurant.

The long Thanksgiving holiday hadn't even started, but the parking lot at the Harris Ranch Inn & Restaurant was filling with the red-eyed and road-weary. Beverly Lund, a 46-year-old music industry executive, swung in for a bag of fruit on the way from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. Don Dakin, the owner of a San Diego optical manufacturing plant, took a break for a steak during a family trip to a second home in Lake Tahoe. Mel Grable had come even farther.

John Harris' cattle empire looks like small potatoes compared with meat giants IBP Inc. and Excel Corp., but here the rancher is a cattle baron, controlling almost a quarter of all cattle slaughtered in the state.

A developer will proceed with a garden homes project on the site of the former Harris Ranch horse stables. The Planning Commission recommended the project in May. With the City Council's approval of a zoning change from agricultural to residential last week, Bartoli Fuhrman Development may build the 43 single-family homes. The five-acre development at 11811 Wintersburg Ave. will have two-story homes ranging in size from 1,498 square feet to 1,932 square feet.

In writing recently of our automobile trip north over Interstate 5, I mentioned passing what seemed to us an appalling cattle feedlot on the east side of the road near the Coalinga turnoff. I described it as "an enormous fenced enclosure in which tens of thousands of cattle stood idle in their own dung under the burning sun. It was the Harris Ranch feedlot. (Which I learned later.) The cows were being grain-fed for market. They looked quite miserable and hopeless.

Dear SOS: I recently ate at Harris Ranch Restaurant (located off Interstate 5 at the Coalinga exit) and was very impressed with their biscuits, as they reminded me of happy memories of my childhood. I wanted to buy some to take to my sisters, but the restaurant/bakery does not sell biscuits to the public. I would appreciate it if you can obtain the recipe for me. Thank you.

May 21, 1995 | MICHAEL PARRISH, TIMES STAFF WRITER; Parrish writes for The Times' Business section. and

Halfway from Los Angeles to San Francisco, up the monotony of Interstate 5, Harris Ranch is a familiar traveler's refuge. Big red sign, can't miss it. Aficionados of beef began stopping for choice-grade steak and eggs, or steak and almost anything, when the restaurant and coffee shop opened next to the freeway in 1977. Ten years later the family company built a Spanish-style, beige stucco inn with Olympic-size pool, spa and gardens under the palm trees.

On the ramrod-straight, 400-mile stretch of Interstate 5 that connects the Bay Area and Los Angeles, little exists to break the tedium of the flat, seemingly endless Central Valley farmland. About midway between the metropolises, however, one sight has given many a speeding urbanite pause: The Harris Ranch feedlot, which appears from afar to be a vast, teeming sea of black, brown and white but on closer inspection (by eye or nose) reveals itself as a motley community of 80,000 or so cattle.